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by defrost 612 days ago
So do humans, babies and the elderly especially.

What has 4 legs in the morning, 2 in the afternoon, and 3 in the evening?

The key here is how relaxed is the interpretation of "permanent".

4 comments

> So do humans, babies and the elderly especially.

Only the healthy adult form is taken into account generally, you wouldn't say that dragonflies are mainly swimming animals for example, even if they do spend most of their life underwater as larvae.

The point here is that kangaroos that are capable of bipedal motion will always choose quadrupedal motion at low speeds. While humans who can walk will always choose to walk when possible.

Adults crawl all the time
Adults never choose to crawl, unless in tight spaces or drunk off their rocker.
Yes we do, e.g. there's a sweet spot when scaling an incline (especially if there's easy handholds, e.g. a grassy incline) where using all fours is much easier and natural than making the same trips on two legs, even though you'd be perfectly capable of doing that too (i.e. I'm not talking about proper wall climbing).
You’re right, but if I can extrapolate from myself to most adults, that’s approximately never.

I think I’ve done that once in the last 10 years, and I spend a fair bit of time in the woods.

you've never been to a teetotal claustrophile bdsm party
Birds migrating are mostly zero legging it!

To answer the question: a yacht race?

I like the answer, I'm just not sure it's correct - are there any yacht races that have that many legs?

(Aside from AI Yacht's, of course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U79-kDQnbPE )

Mahy do. The Caribbean 600, for example.

Now, nobody is completing that race in one day, but that’s a different issue.

https://caribbean600.rorc.org/

something something wings are air-legs
> What has 4 legs in the morning, 2 in the afternoon, and 3 in the evening?

A table. My table. To solve this stupid riddle, I remove 2 of its legs before afternoon and screw one of them back on before the evening.

Sphinx, I dare you to refute me.

Pretty sure the Sphinx was talking about my "third leg" in the evening. In the morning I crawl on all fours until I get my coffee.
Baby crawling adults walking and old man with cane?
Okay but that's a pretty long day, isn't it? I'm not sure that's a proper 'riddle', per se.
Like it or not it's been a definitive example of a classic riddle since before it appeared in Oedipus Rex, an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed c. 429 BC.

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_Rex

( spoiler: he loved his mother )